Sotto

It’s more like a night club, full of young people. The music is ok, but the drink is horrible.

Well it’s been 4 months and I came back on a Friday night. I was hoping it got better. Nope.
$ 2 cover. That’s good, right? It conveys confidence! Walk downstairs and no ones here. If it was more than $ 2 I’d be cranky. Apparently that wasn’t confidence speaking, it was just «we know you’ll prolly leave ASAP so we need a couple bucks first.» Head to the bar. $ 7 for less than a shot of well vodka. Hint: 3 ½ count pour isn’t much. Bar staff took 4 minutes to even notice me, which is odd cause after a groups of 5 that just arrived, there are now 19 people in this entire place. One of the bartenders is being trained by someone who’s wearing a giant wrap/​shawl thing that keeps drooping into the ice wells. Maybe I’ll just have a beer after all. It’s now 12:48 am and half the crowd isn’t at the bar buying liquor – they’re leaving to make it to happy hour somewhere fun. Myself included. Weird cause the music is better now, but the bar is still shitty. I could make this such a great place. But it’s not mine so… beware all ye who enter

I gave up… I have given this place so many chances. It used to be busy when it first was hot on the scene and I will say I had some pretty great times, but I swear you can hear the wind blow with tumbleweeds and all now… Let me tell you this: I went last month to give it yet another chance, and at 1am on a Friday, there were two people hanging out 1) the bartender 2) the dj. Don’t go here if you want to dance… go to Plan B on Thursdays for 18&up night where they play hip-​hop. This place is a bust and I am surprised it is still open. I don’t want to be harsh, but you have to park far away and walk all the way to the bar and then downstairs where as we all know, doesn’t work well for drunk people, all the while you have no idea there is literally one cricket in the corner and a lone bartender.

Sotto was interesting for a «gay» club. The gayest thing there Friday night was probably the bartender.
At 10 o’clock, it was dead with two bartenders and the DJ.
An hour later, about eight people walked in, so my group followed. Before midnight, they don’t card/​charge a cover. And unless they make 21 year olds different in Wisconsin, some of the girls we saw were 16 at best– and that’s being generous.
First impressions — lack luster bar, cruddy décor, twenty second gaps between songs, sticky dance-​floor, overall a poorly kept space. Effects were limited to one moving light, RGB strip lights, black lights, and a fog machine putting out cotton candy scented fog.
My group returned once again around midnight. By then they were charging a cover (luckily we had gotten stamped before leaving and didn’t have to pay) and there were about 25 couples lazily humping one another and flapping their arms like some sort of awkward birds on the dance-​floor. The DJ picked it up a notch — no gaps, just an odd mix of pop songs from the late 90s and early 2000s with uneven sound levels.
Although the bartenders were friendly, the drinks were weak and they double charged my card. There is no easy means to contact them…

DJs are assholes and don’t listen to requests. They play songs from 6 years ago and pay zero attention to the fact that no one is dancing to their tired mixes.

Sotto is my go-​to for dancing in Madison. I didn’t realize it was a gay bar the first two times I went. The DJs are always changing, but I’ve never been there and thought the music was terrible. It starts getting really crowded around 1 am, and everyone is really sweaty and dancing. There’s a lot of room downstairs, so it’s good for groups. There is one area for standing around and ordering drinks, and a separate area for dancing. The music would be too loud to hold a real conversation though. Another thing I like about Sotto is that you don’t have to dance with the group you came in. Oftentimes, I will end up dancing with another group for a little while. Everyone is very friendly. Definitely go to Sotto if you feel like dancing, but don’t feel like getting hit on (if you’re straight. If you’re gay, that may be a different story since it’s a gay bar, and I don’t know what that’s like.)

Sotto is a decent gay club. The location downtown is great, music is good, and drink prices are reasonable. The crowd can run a little on the younger side, (saw 2 kids turned away with their fake IDs) but it is a college town so that is expected. Overall, if you are looking for a fun night out, this is a good place to go to. I do like that they take credit cards and there is no minimum that you must charge. If you are a teaching assistant or a young prof at UW, I do warn you that you will likely run into your students here.

I’ve never been to a gay club before, so I don’t really have anything to compare this place to. I came here a couple of times with my friend (who assures me he isn’t gay, but seeing as how much he likes this place, I’m not so sure).
Anyways, I’ve been here 3 times, blacked out once, got kicked out for being drunk the second time, and had an amazing time the third.
So based on the one experience I have of here that I remember, I can safely say I had a great time.

Sotto is the Shit. Beyonce.

Sotto has potential. I haven’t been in the building since it was Bullfeathers, and they’ve definitely cleaned it up. There’s a lot of room for dancing, the bartenders are nice, and the vibe overall was really friendly. Why not three stars instead of two?
— Bottom of the barrel drinks — my whiskey and seven gave me immediate gut-​rot.
— Really young clientele (which is fine/​expected, but the owner had previously said in an interview they wanted to cater to an older crowd and everything about the place skews very young).
— Really mediocre DJ.
— The fact that when my friends requested «My Chick Bad» by Ludacris (they just learned a dance to it at Dance Fabulous heeeeeeeyyyyyyy) the DJ replied, «That’s too ghetto, I’ll have to make a mashup because we don’t want any trouble.» Incredible.
Get a better/​less vaguely-​racist DJ (whoever was spinning on ¹⁰⁄₂₁) and I’ll reconsider you, Sotto.